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	Father Alberto Cutie: Did Cuban Spies Follow Me? By Lydia Martin and Jaweed Kaleem Miami Herald May 13, 2009 http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1046221.html The Rev. Alberto Cutie said he felt he was being followed while he cavorted with his lover, perhaps by Cuban spies. Father Alberto Cutie's fall from grace and into the arms of a woman he says he met in church and found himself attracted to from the moment he looked into her eyes sounds more and more like a Hollywood script. In an interview taped Friday and aired Tuesday night on Univision's Aqui y Ahora, Cutie intimated it may have been Cuban spies who followed him and taped him getting frisky with his lover on a beach in Miami. ''I knew that during some time I was being followed,'' Cutie said. 'I think that being Cuban American, we have that paranoia that perhaps it could be someone from another government, from another place. . . . I had experiences at Radio Paz of seeing strange cars when I would leave work late or arrive early. I would see things and I would say, `I wonder who would be following me?' '' But that didn't stop him from his moment of fun in the sun with his girlfriend of more than two years, whom Cutie still has not named directly but who has been identified in media reports as Ruhama Buni Canellis, 35, a divorced mother living in South Beach. Cutie said it was his companion on the sand who first noticed they were being taped. ''I look and I see the camera,'' Cutie said. 'My first reaction was, `What can I do? It's already happened.' My first reaction was to stay calm.'' He says the videographer, a heavyset woman who was trying to hide the camera, left the minute she realized Cutie spotted her. He says he has no idea who she is and that he learned of the spread in TVNotas the day the Mexican magazine hit the streets. Univision's Teresa Rodriguez asked if she tried to contact him to sell him the photos. ''Nobody talked to me about it,'' he said. Cutie said he was attracted to his love almost from the moment they met about 10 years ago in church. And that she wrote him a letter three or four years later saying that she wanted to be his friend and that she promised that was all she wanted to be. She suggested they go out for coffee. He turned her down that time, but later agreed to meet. ''I was dressed like a civilian,'' he told Rodriguez. 'I told her I would meet her at the rectory, and I put on my black suit and collar so that it would be clear, so that she knew, `There is not going to be anything here.' I just knew there was this strong connection.'' He said he doesn't remember the details of that conversation but that they spoke about God and the Bible. What attracts him? ''She is a good woman, a simple woman, a humble woman,'' Cutie said. ``But what attracts me most, besides that I think she is physically beautiful, is her faith. . . . I think she has the same passion that I have for Jesus.'' ''Is she the love of your life?,'' Rodriguez later asked. ''If not, I would not be in this situation,'' Cutie said. At the end of the program Rodriguez reported she had had a subsequent conversation with Cutie in which he ''categorically denied'' rumors that Canellis, who reportedly has a 14-year-old son, also has a younger child that could be his. The Archdiocese of Miami made no indication Wednesday of what would happen to Cutie, who was removed from his Miami Beach church after the compromising photos of him with his girlfriend surfaced last week. ''The Catholic Church is a loving, patient and caring church and it asks for everyone's prayers for Father Alberto Cutie as he continues his prayerful journey,'' said spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta. Contact: lmartin@MiamiHerald.com
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